Recent Work by Odili Donald Odita
by NEWS
From January 5 to February 10, 2018, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York will present a solo exhibition of recent work by leading Nigerian artist Odili Donald Odita.
Odita is an abstract painter whose work explores color both in the figurative historical context and in the sociopolitical sense. According to the artist, “Colour in itself has the possibility of mirroring the complexity of the world as much as it has the potential for being distinct. The organisation and patterning in the paintings are of my own design. I continue to explore in the paintings, a metaphoric ability to address the human condition through pattern, structure, and design, as well as for its possibility to trigger memory. The colours I use are personal: they reflect the collection of visions from my travels locally and globally. This is also one of the hardest aspects of my work as I try to derive the colours intuitively, hand-mixing and coordinating them along the way. In my process, I cannot make a colour twice – it can only appear to be the same. This aspect is important to me as it highlights the specificity of differences that exist in the world of people and things.” Odita goes on to express his desire to speak positively about Africa and its rich culture through his work.
Odita was born in 1966 in Enugu, Nigeria, and lives and works in Philadelphia. He has been the recipient of a Penny McCall Foundation Grant in 1994, a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant in 2001, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant in 2007. In 2007, his large installation Give Me Shelter was featured prominently in the 52nd Venice Biennale exhibition Think With The Senses, Feel With the Mind, curated by Robert Storr.
http://www.jackshainman.com
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